10. When I Am Gone

Que se lembren de min cando eu falte. [Remember me when I am gone.]

Rosalía had just written this in her journal and immediately I thought of the same sentiment, a line from a well-known poem: "Remember" by Christina Rossetti, believed to have been written in the mid-1800s, in 1849, according to many. It was published in collection Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862. This means the writers were contemporaries. I suspect Rosalía knew of Rossetti. Goblin Market was a very popular book. And the first line of the poem in English is so similar: “Remember me when I am gone away.” Yet why was Rosalía insisting on recording this desire? 

I think I need to provide some explanatory notes as we go through the journal. There might be an explanation. Also, because the original poem, “Santa Escolástica,” was copied over several pages by the poet and we only covered the first part in the previous chapter, it seems that I should finish it if I take my responsibility at all seriously. There are some odd shifts in the last section that so far nobody has noticed, and these really need to be pointed out. 

I’m going to go out on a limb to interpret the ending of the poem that most readers and scholars see as religious sentiment. They haven’t noticed the juxtaposition.

Admittedly, because the book the poem comes from is in Spanish, En las orillas del Sar [Beside the Sar River] has gotten less attention in recent years from within Galicia. This needs to be taken into account. However, it was Rosalía’s last book, published in 1884, the year before her death, and we know she’d gotten bad reactions to some of her writing, so she’d used Spanish in retaliation. Perhaps, too, this is just me feeling guilty about paying attention to writing in Spanish when all I’ve dealt with in recent years has been in Galician. Because I really do feel guilty.

Maybe more writing was saved from being burned by Alexandra. Maybe another journal or set of letters is yet to be found. We can hope. If we can discover what Rosalía was trying to tell us, it’ll be a miracle. We’ll have to continue searching. 

This second part of this long poem also requires an English translation, which I realize can be tedious for some people, but it’s necessary. I did manage to eliminate a few stanzas, but what I’ve included here is pretty much a rough draft. I need to do a lot more polishing. 

It would be nice to be able to trace Rosalía’s correspondence with the women in the US in order to see if any manuscript remains on either side of the Atlantic, but where to start looking ? By manuscript I mean earlier drafts of the poem as well as any English version by the American women. No translation by the Americans has turned up yet, however, not in handwritten nor in printed form. There are a few more modern ones, like I said, but I’ll include my own here in a rough rendering of the oldish nineteenth century style. Later on, I’ll improve it. I wonder if my translation is anything like the ‘feminist translation’ as another translator calls her version? I’ll look at hers afterwards.

Quero que saiban o que traballei por Galiza e a nosa lingua. Non o digo por min, senón pola miña xente, pola miña terra. Se se lembran de min, non poderán esquecerse de Galiza. [I want them to know I worked hard for Galicia and our language. I’m not thinking about myself, I’m thinking about my people, my homeland. If they remember me, they won’t be able to forget Galicia.]

Here’s my translation of the test of “Santa Escolástica”:

IV

Majestad de los templos, mi alma femenina

te siente, como siente las maternas dulzuras,

las inquietudes vagas, las ternuras secretas

y el temor a lo oculto tras de la inmensa altura.

[Majesty of temples, my woman’s soul

senses you, just as it senses the sweetness of motherhood,

The vague uncertainties, the secret tenderness

and the fear of what is hidden beyond the immense above.]

¡Oh, majestad sagrada! En nuestra húmeda tierra

más grande eres y augusta que en donde el sol ardiente

inquieta con sus rayos vivísimos las sombras

que al pie de los altares oran, velan o duermen.

[Oh, sacred majesty! In our damp earth

you are greater and more august han where the burning sun

uses its lively rays to create uneasiness among the shadows 

that pray, stand watch or sleep at the foot of the altars.]

…..

…..

…..

Y mi mirada inquieta, cual buscando refugio

para el alma, que sola luchaba entre tinieblas,

recorrió los altares, esperando que acaso

algún rayo celeste brillase al fin en ella.

[And my uneasy gaze, as if seeking refuge

for my soul, struggling alone in the shadows,

went searching the altars, hoping for the

chance ray of celestial light to brighten it at last.]

Y... ¡no fue vano empeño ni ilusión engañosa!

Suave, tibia, pálida la luz rasgó la bruma

y penetró en el templo, cual entre la alegría

de súbito en el pecho que las penas anublan.

[And… it wasn’t a lost cause or a deceptive illusion!

Soft, warm, pale, the light slashed through the fog

and penetrated the temple, like joy suddenly 

enters the breast that’s darkened by pain.]

¡Ya yo no estaba sola! En armonioso grupo,

como visión soñada, se dibujó en el aire

de un ángel y una santa el contorno divino,

que en un nimbo envolvía vago el sol de la tarde.

[I was no longer alone! In a harmonious group,

as if appearing in a dream, in the air I could make out

the divine silhouette of an angel and a saint

wrapped in a nimbus by the lazy afternoon sun.]

Aquel candor, aquellos delicados perfiles

de celestial belleza, y la inmortal sonrisa

que hace entreabrir los labios del dulce mensajero

mientras contempla el rostro de la virgen dormida

[That candor, those delicate profiles

of heavenly beauty, and the immortal smile

that makes the lips of the sweet messenger part

while contemplating the lips of the sleeping virgin]

en el sueño del éxtasis, y en cuya frente casta

se transparenta el fuego del amor puro y santo,

más ardiente y más hondo que todos los amores

que pudo abrigar nunca el corazón humano;

[in her dream of ecstasy, and on whose chaste forehead 

the flame of the purest, most saintly love shines,

More ardently, more deeply than all the love

the human heart could ever hold;]

aquel grupo que deja absorto el pensamiento,

que impresiona el espíritu y asombra la mirada,

me hirió calladamente, como hiere los ojos

cegados por la noche la blanca luz del alba.

[that group that absorbs all thought,

impressing the spirit and surprising the gaze,

silently wounded me like the white light of dawn

wounds eyes that have been blinded by night.]

Todo cuanto en mí había de pasión y ternura,

de entusiasmo ferviente y gloriosos empeños,

ante el sueño admirable que realizó el artista,

volviendo a tomar vida, resucitó en mi pecho.

[All the passion and tenderness I had within me,

my fervent passion and glorious efforts,

as I looked upon the admirable dream created by the artist,

came to life again, and was reborn in my heart.]

Sentí otra vez el fuego que ilumina y que crea

los secretos anhelos, los amores sin nombre,

que como al arpa eólica el viento, al alma arranca

sus notas más vibrances, sus más dulces canciones.

[Once more the fire that illuminates and creates

secret desires, loves that remain nameless,

that like the wind in the … harp, tears from the soul

its most vibrant notes, its sweetest songs.]

Y orando y bendiciendo al que es todo hermosura,

se dobló mi rodilla, mi frente se inclinó

ante Él, y conturbada, exclamé de repente:

«¡Hay arte! ¡Hay poesía...! Debe haber cielo. ¡Hay Dios!»

[And praying and blessing the one who is utter beauty,

me knee bent, my head bowed

before Him and, deeply moved, I suddenly exclaimed:

“Art exists! Poetry exists…! There must be a heaven. God is there!”]

Non quero que me esquezan. [I don’t want to be forgotten.]  

Quero que se lembren de min. [I want to be remembered.] 

Non me dá vergoña admitilo. [I’m not ashamed to say it.] 

Lembrade quen son porque escribín sobre outros que recordaban a vida que deixaban cando marcharon para sempre, para non volver nunca. [Remember me because I wrote about others who remembered as they left forever, never to return.]

Rosalía seems obsessed with the idea of being remembered. Her journal contains several more references to it. 

Her journal continues and as I read it I come across what I was looking for! It’s an entry that explains why the woman in her poem finds no solace in the cathedral. In my translation, she wrote: The City of the Saint belongs to Santiago and I am petrified at being ruled by him. Then she has added, in tiny cursive: I have learned that the only path out of slavery, whether it be for race or gender, is education.

From this I can only deduce that she had read a great deal about women’s rights, whether it had come from America, Britain, France, Germany, Italy - much more than critics of the past would admit. They wanted Rosalía to be their saint, the suffering mother who would console them in their poverty and loneliness, always shadowed by an emigration that solved few problems.

Rosalía lists a few poems which describe the farewells (“Adiós ríos, adiós fontes”) and the thoughts of those who remained, left behind, and were usually women (“Tecín soia a miña tea”). There were many more published; I’ve read them. Follas Novas [New Leaves] has a section on ‘widows of the living’, if we wish to see all of them. Those verses are definitely familiar to every Galician, even today.

 Non deixedes de ler a miñas palabras, por sinxelas que sexan. [Keep reading my words, simple as they might be.]

Aprendín todo por Santa Escolástica, a de luz, comprensión e beleza, non por Santiago que só quere que lle teñamos medo. [I learned everything from Saint Scholastica, the saint of light, understanding, and beauty, not from Santiago, who only wants us to fear him.]

As I read this, I know we must piece together what arrogance and ignorance created for the writer who broke rules, paid the price, and never gave up until the very end. We can attribute the few statements from her journal that I’ve included here as self-aggrandizing, but that’s only if we refuse to understand why Rosalía wrote at all. And refuse to believe that censorship was a very serious thing for women writers, literatas, bluestockings, in the nineteenth century.

It seems that happened to a lot of those ‘scribbling women’ condemned by an envious Hawthorne. The author, by the way, of that hard-to-read novel, The Scarlet Letter.